11 Dec

Speakeasy Toastmasters Mallow

Notes for publication on 11th December.


At the Speakeasy Toastmasters meeting on Thursday night, 27th November, Jeremiah Ronayne entertained us with a speech entitled ‘A head for heights’ which described his own lack of a head for heights! He shared with us the trauma of climbing Mont Blanc in a series of cable cars culminating in a stomach-dropping free fall at the peak. And then having to face into the return journey knowing exactly what to expect! He keeps his feet firmly on the ground now, in every sense.
This speech was evaluated by Joan Linehan.
The final speech of the evening came from Sean Corcoran who spoke to us about ‘Going beyond our club’. While toastmaster’s activities in our own club help us to develop speaking and leadership skills, we can get extra practise and improve ourselves by participating in contests as competitors as well as judges, counters, timers and audience members. Sean finished up his speech by sharing with us some interesting insights into what can happen when you do ‘go beyond your club’! He described the eventful trip he and other club members had when they recently went to Edinburgh to support Kieran Buckley and Gerry O’ Callaghan in the District conference. I’m sure we didn’t hear the half of it!
The topics session took an interesting and novel turn when Dierdre Linehan took on the role of topics master! The lines were drawn and the members divided – into teams to fight it out in the battle of the topics. Another battle was the subject of one of the topics, i.e. the battle of the talk shows, ‘Who wins on Friday night -Dunphy or Kenny?’ Other topics included the ideal Christmas gift and - do you get your partner what they want or what they need? Some might not have liked the scoring system but didn’t the best team win?

Our next meeting is on Thursday, 11th December and as it’s our last meeting before Christmas it will be a FUN night - in keeping with the season that’s in it! This would be an excellent night to come and visit as a guest.
As usual, the meeting starts at 8:00 pm and we ask everyone to be at The Hibernian Hotel (Chapel Lane) at 7:50 pm.